If We Had Proportional Representation....

If you had PR, you would either end up with negotiations after each election or coalitions between parties being arranged before the elections(the second arrangement is more frequent in system's like Germany's or Ireland's, the first is typical of Israeli politics(in the last Knesset, no party had more than 22% of the seats there).

In each case, it would hinge on how well the various minor parties performed.

In Canada, the Green Party would be a major wild card in a PR system.  At the moment, it's difficult to say whether or not the Green share of the vote would stay the same, grow, or decline in a PR system, especially since it's not totally clear whether all those who vote for Green now(Alberta is a good example of the uncertainty)would continue to vote Green if that party was actually going to be likely to elect a significant number of MP's.   While there are a fair amount of people who back the GPC out of sincere conviction, there are probably a disproportionate number who park their votes with the GPC as a protest vote, knowing that they won't actually have to worry about what Green MP's might get up to.

The level of NDP support might also be problematic, since it's possible that a fair number of current NDP voters might break off and back a more left-wing party if such a party looked like it had the potential to actually win seats.  At the same time, a fair amount of Liberal voters might vote NDP if they thought such a vote wouldn't end up down the electoral rabbit hole, as it does under FPTP.

So, it's all very unpredictable, and various new parties(as has been discussed in other Babble threads)could also emerge along fault lines as yet unknown in the current political spectrum.

(Yes, all of this will be on the test.)

_________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

If we had proportional representation... we wouldn't have Prime Ministers constantly playing games of chicken with confidence motions because there would be no majority that could be gained in a subsequent election.

Well, it's not as if majority government is completely out of the question in a PR system.

If you are reading this, you have just proved once again how annoying signatures/tag lines are. Support their abolition.

A proportional representation thread on Babble. Well that is better then every other thread that gets hijacked by PR. It hasn't happened to any large degree since last week, as talk has been focused on the coalition. I have read topics on Schools, Roads, Health Care, forestry, industry, racism, sexism, communism all get hijacked by a PR conversation. Leadership candidates, and names of parlimentarians. Anything to do with a subject turns into a PR discussion. But today, someone, brilliantly created a thread on PR. I think that is fantastic. I am for it.

Now, about my pet hamster..... :)

Point taken-I suppose the only time I've really heard about PR Govt is when deals are being cut in places that are chronically split like Italy or Israel. 

Is its name 'Boo'?

 [If you don't get it, don't worry ]

Brian Topp: Our friends on the blue team seem to mostly focus on sticks, and not so much on carrots. ;)

I don't think it would be all so problematic for the left or the right, and this basically what it boils down to. Coalition governments are, I would say, a normal part of advanced democracy in countries where proportional representation exists. What they don't have is one party with 37% of the actual vote(22% of the eligible vote) attempting to dictate conservative agendas to the majority. Not unless they have a coalition of right-rightist  and centre-right parties, which probably isn't so common.

I think that PR would actually help force or oblige parties on the same end of the general political spectrum to cooperate instead of competing against one another for the role of opposition or government. True majorities are possible with PR, but the winning party would clearly have to earn the support of most voters. Our two oldest political parties surely won't desire to have to work as hard as that with their being accustomed to being handed phony majorities by voters for so long. This FPP system rewards our two big money business parties while, at the same time, frustrating hell out of some large percentage of registered Canadian voters wanting to vote for change.

Proportional representation would allow the best politicians from each party to become the legislators, and keep out the opportunists who work the hardest to get the nomination in a 'safe' seat and then coast as the M.P.

Go over the results of the October 14th election province by province, and you'd see the House of Commons we'd have with P.R. would be a vast improvement over the one that's there now.

The sound of one democratic hand clapping: coalition government, yes, but it's not the one we deserve:

Done, in my new blog. [10]

Thanks, Wilf. And that coalition is given the current dynamics of voting in Canada with all the apprehensiveness of strategic voting and voting scared. Imagine that people just voted for the party they think best  represents their political views without any of the FPP baggage to consider on election day. And how many more people would vote if one person equalled one vote? It might even be worth a few seats here and there. I'd love to see it happen in Canada. It would be a great day for democracy.

It's now clearer than ever why Canada needs a proportional House of Commons. Such a parliament, on the votes cast October 14, would have given us all three good options the morning after the vote:

1.  The one we know: a Liberal-NDP coalition with external support from the Bloc.

2.  A three-party majority coalition government: Liberal-NDP-Green.

3.  The minority Liberal-NDP coalition governing with, as the Germans say, "shifting majorities:" on any given measure it could rely on external support from either the Greens or the Bloc, giving neither a veto.

That's the kind of flexible stable alternatives you get from a system where every vote counts.

Wilf, if Dion and Layton had gone to see the G-G the day after the Oct. 14 election with the same signed agreements (including BQ support) as they have now - and with an additional declaration that they planned to all vote against the throne speech - what would have happened?

And the same question would apply after a proportional election under any of the three alternatives just listed above.

Normally the outgoing government would see that it had to resign. If it chose to meet the House promptly, and wanted to see if the members would actually vote out the outgoing government, precisely as Frank Miller did in 1985 -- when he too was bidding for NDP support -- it would have that right. The opera isn't over until the fat lady sings, and a new deal might be reached an hour before the vote, or some loose Emerson fish might cross the floor.

The only time the Governor-General could dismiss the outgoing government in that situation would be if it failed to convene parliament promptly, and was stalling out of desperation.

If I had a million dollars...

So what can we do to get proportional representation in Canada?

I get the concept, read the details, visited fairvote.ca but what exactly can we do to make sure this gets implemented ?

As Ken Burch and Fidel mentioned, there would be a lot of dynamic factors entering play, such as party re-alignments, new parties, and new voting patterns. The model above is simplified, but I'd say it still gives a pretty good idea of how the current parliament would lean.

By the same token, it also gives us a good idea of why Thomas d'Aquino (who one could say is the de facto head of state, far more influential on any cabinet than the de jure head of state, the G-G) and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives would not like PR. They would be sure to play on, whip up, Canadians' fear of change in order to retain the system that corporate Canada favors, ie, the current placebo democracy.

Approving and implementing PR would require a huge education and public relations campaign. PropRep would have to be seen as far more desirable than the current system, in order for people to take a chance in supporting it. This current crisis seems to have more than the usual low number of people talking about the federal system, but the deficiencies of FPTP is not a prevalent topic.

But I don't say that to discourage people working for PR, its time will come if people keep patiently plugging away...

______________________________________________________

http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/questions_and_answers/faq7/faq7.h...

I think for me, short of volunteering for Fairvote Canada, I have to talk to those around me as much as possible about it, get them to look at fairvote Canada's site, follow up on the discussion with them. Real grassroots pushing of the idea, one person at a time. A larger movement can only grow from the changed minds of individuals, convinced that our system can be more democratic.

Two very separate questions need to be asked:

1. Given the way it distorts the public will and wastes votes, should FPTP be replaced? (Yes or No?)

2. Exactly what system would replace FPTP? (multiple choice)

____________________________________________________________ http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/questions_and_answers/faq7/faq7.h...

Professor of public policy says coalition governments work routinely in Europe and other countries.

From a lectern draped in the Canadian flag, speakers at a Regina rally of about 250 people Thursday night accused the prime minister of being anti-Canadian and undemocratic. [20]

"I'm looking forward to a government the majority of us voted for," said Dave Nickle, an executive member of the Peterborough and District Labour Council, to the crowd at the Peterborough pro-Coalition rally Saturday. [21]

Keep it simple.

With every vote counting, the Liberals would have about nine more western MPs.

So the Liberals need PR as much as the NDP and Greens. Details on my blog.

The Conservatives would have about eight more Quebec MPs. They would no longer have to play to their base..

The Bloc would have 17 or 20 fewer MPs, and the Greens enough that the Liberal-NDP government could rely on either the Greens or the Bloc.

PR has suffered a setback during this crisis.  Most Canadians now seem to feel that coalitions are undemocratic. During the last week Harper has succesfully sold the idea of coalition government as being an "undemocratic coup". The majority seems to agree. They feel that in order to be legitimate, coalition parties must announce their intention to enter into a coalition BEFORE voting day.This of course is unreasonable.

The STV referendum in BC has now totally changed. The No side in the referendum will now say that STV will cause endless situations like the one we had this week. The yes-side will have to respond to this argument or lose. I think the chances of getting 60% support in BC for STV has been dealt a huge setback this week.

Alternatively, I thing the argument for the Alternative Vote has been greatly strengthened this week. This week people have been trying to figure out which party has the support of the majority of Canadians. The Alternative vote would go a long way to answered the question "which single party has the support of the majority". Maybe in the next election we should have a Alternive vote over which party should form government? This would ensure that the governing party has majority support without the need of a coalition.

Personally I prefer STV over the Alternative Vote and hopefully BCSTV  will pass but if it doesn't I think we should then support the Alternative Vote.

The Alternative Vote would be an easy sell.Much easier then STV or MMP. (Both systems I prefer to AV)

One thing for sure - FPTP has to go. It's one of the major reasons our government lacks legitimacy and why we are currently going through an era where people are split over who has the legitimacy to form our government.

Alternative vote is a no go. It means that the mushy middle will ALWAYS benefit from it. Look at this election given our even a third or forth choice it would be liberals before cons after bloc and greens. So who gets that 50% vote. Libs in probably 175 seats leaving 100 to the tories and maybe 25 to bloc and 8 to the NDP in very strong riding. Which would leave us in majority governments from now till forever. Canada could be renamed alberta and whoever won the nomination meatings would be MP's. In addition leaderships convenrtions would become head of state conventions. I guess you could run under the banner "Totalitarians unite"

______________________________________________________________________________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." Noam Chomsky

I dont think we should trick people into believing that PR solves all problems of governance. Of course, I know what you mean about spooking ppl unnecessarily. But this situation with FPP doesnt happen all the time. PR is a great way to avoid phony majority governments taking voters for granted decade after decade. It's not supposed to make dictatorial rule easier and worry free for governments. But it's great for encouraging parties to cooperate with each other and work harder at governing. Harper is one of the few Canadian PM's to not enjoy the FPP privilege of flipping off the opposition and getting away with it. I think too many Canadians view elections as a foot race or a Stanley cup hockey game. Once its over, they think that's all there is to the season and democracy, fini, done with, tidy up and put it on a shelf for another four years. Right now too many Canadians liken what's happening in Ottawa to the Penguins and maybe the Stars trying to reverse the results of last spring.

If the choice is between FPTP and AV, I'd go with AV. I'd choose the mushy middle ruling Canada with majority support over right-wing neo-conservatives ruling Canada with minority support.

 The battle for PR would not end if we switched to AV. Under AV proportionality could be increased by simply creating multiple-seat AV ridings - STV. Or an MMP system could still be created with AV still being used to elect people in single-member constituency. PR can be attained incrementally. PR systems can morph from AV.

One thing for sure is that Canada desperately needs an electoral system to deal with our multiple party system. AV can function within a system that has multiple parties. FPTP can't. Under FPTP we are stuck with the left grasping at methods of strategic voting. AV allows people to vote their true intentions. You don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Strategic voting would be a thing of the past under AV. It would also lead to respectful politics as parties would ask for support from people who support other parties.

The basis of democracy is majority rule. STV, MMP, and AV provide majority rule. FPTP doesn't. If the only way to get rid of FPTP in the very near future is AV, we should choose AV.

 The battle for PR can be continued under FPTP or AV.

As I understand it, AV is even less proportional than FPTP.  AV doesn't provide majority rule, except perhaps in presidential systems.  AV is a disaster waiting to happen. 

For Canada, STV is probably the ideal system.  Open list MMP might also be OK (just for you Wilf!). 

If you live in the Lower Mainland of BC, drop by one of my presentations at:

Richmond & Delta,  Tue. 9 Dec., 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm, Tapestry Christian Reformed Church, 9280 Number 2 Road, Richmond.

Burnaby/New Westminster,  Wed. 10 Dec., 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm, McGill Library, Burnaby, 4595 Albert St., Burnaby, one block north and one block east of Hastings and Willingdon.

Vancouver,  Thu. 11 Dec., 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm, West End Community Centre, Denman Room, 870 Denman Street, Vancouver.

Supporting the recommendation of the BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform

Make Your Vote Count - Support BC-STV - 12th May 2009

Is there a good book on PR voting systems aimed at the general public?

If not, it'd be great if Wilf and others would write one! Complete with interactive computer simulations.

A public education project must be the basis of getting a PR system for Canada. Without a good level of understanding among the electorate, we could be mired in debate, full of misrepresentations, for an unnecessarily protracted time.

___________________________________________________________ http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/questions_and_answers/faq7/faq7.h...

Quite right.

The Ontario Citizens' Assembly didn't make the same final choice as their BC counterpart, but it did vote on AV: only three members preferred it to the PR models. Six members preferred the semi-proportional "parallel" system, and must have been among the nine members who listed AV as their second choice. Out of 103 members, only nine PR-sceptics.

You'd have little company. Electoral reformers say:

Remarkably, the Ontario Liberals, who know this perfectly well and could have stacked the Citizens' Assembly staff with AV fans, decided not to be that blatant. They realized that pushing a system that favoured one party would not be democratic.

Actually, it can do so only by turning them into two parties. In Australia the conservative party is officially two parties, the Liberal Party and the Country Party, who don't really run against each other, but their voters give second preferences to each other, in support of the Liberal/Country government or opposition.

I've just ordered and should be picking up today, a book that Wilf Day recommended called "The Politics of Voting" by Dennis Pilon. He is a professor at UVic. This book describes different models of voting systems and was released toward the end of last year.  It is written from a Canadian perspective and is available from Emond Montgomery. My comp is really slow right now, otherwise I'd post a link.

Some of you may have seen Dennis Pilon being quoted with respect to the events of last week.

PR would never work due to the regional difference. We have to open up the constitution and settle the difference in Quebec and the west. Canada has 3 different cultures.

Firstly, Canada has many more than 3 different cultures.   

FPTP exaggerates the perception of regional differences that in reality are much less pronounced. Regional parties get an exaggerated number of seats from their base areas and fewer seats than they deserve in other areas of the country.

The Conservatives are over represented in the west, the Liberals over represented in southern Ontario, and the Block over represented in Quebec.

PR acts directly to reduce regionalism and these false perceptions that tear the country apart, and are exploited by people who look at the number of seats a party gets instead of the proportion of votes a party gets.

The idea of opening up the constitution and presumably dividing up the country because of an affectation of a flawed electoral system would be needlessly self destructive.

It would be like cutting off your feet because you have stones in your shoes.

Supporting the recommendation of the BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform - Support BC-STV - 12th May 2009

As AV is most definitely NOT PR, I would certainly hope this is the case.  However, I think it is naive to think that reforming the Canadian electoral system to AV would be anything but a setback for those who want fair, proportional voting systems in Canada.

 One problem, this has never happened in the real world. There are no example of AV systems "morphing" into PR.

 And I would expect the same thing in Canada. Reform movements need media space to agitate for reform and I would expect that after a change to AV, the media would conveniently place the issue of further electoral reform off the public agenda.

In hindsight I wish I hadn't mentioned AV. PR systems are by far the best and should be supported wholeheartedly. This is especially true considering BC-STV will be coming to a vote in 5 months.

In order for BC-STV to win the day good arguments supporting coalition governments must be made by the pro BC-STV side. After last weeks political drama in Ottawa, the No side will harp on the negative aspects of coalition governments. These arguments will have to be countered. If the anti-PR side can set Canadians against coalition governments it will be very difficult, if not impossible to have PR.

If people cannot be convinced of the merits of coalition governments, we'll continue to be stuck with  majoritarian government and plurality voting systems such as FPTP and AV.

So what is the case for coalition governments?

Here are a few arguments I can think of:

- Most countries in the world have coalition governments and they work very well. (People in Ireland have seen FPTP up close and have chosen to stick with STV)

- Coalition governments are stable. Countires that have PR have devoleped parliamentary rules and conventions that have maintained stable governments. (Germany has had fewer elections and Prime-Ministers then Canada)

- Coalition governments represent the majority of voters. (We've rarely had governments representing a majority)

- Coalition governments represent cooperative politics instead of adversarial politics (we saw a lot of that last week)

- Coalitions allow minority groups to be heard. (Maybe the Greens deserve a spot at the table considering a million people voted for them)

It would be very good if the pro-PR side can come up with many strong talking points in support of coalitions well before the BC-STV referendum in May.

I'm with wilf I prefer MMP far far more than STV. I want to vote for my best local rep and the party of my choice. For one, we have had some very good greens, left ones not composting tories. In this instance I could have him doing the hard work I want locally on the evironment, but vote for the NDP(yes I know they are green even more so than greens I am using examples) on social justice issues and human rights. That doesn't really pan out in STV.

_____________________________________________________________________________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." Noam Chomsky

 Good to hear, JK. Bringing in PR should frankly be a top priority for all thinking Canadian activists, on all ends of the political spectrum.

 As they don't have their heads planted in their behinds, I can assure you that BC-STV (a volunteer campaign of hundreds of British Columbians) will have talking points about coalitions.

 But what they need even more are volunteers and money. I know I'll be giving them both. How about you?

Thorin,

In the foreseeable future, only STV is possible in Canada. MMP lost in Ontario and PEI and the public won't likely change their mind. So I'd suggest that we all try to learn as much about STV as possible.

FPTP and MMP local districts only have one representative, who typically will only represent 50% of the voters and only represent their party's narrow point of view. The people who didn't vote for the winner won't have a local rep. Not very democratic. Shouldn't everyone have a local representative?

With STV you would have a multi-member district so that a variety of points of view can be expressed instead of just one. Almost everyone will get a local representative they voted for. That's a good thing.

With STV, the ballot is preferential, so you don't have to try to vote strategically like you do with FPTP and MMP local elections.

Both MMP and STV are overall proportional systems, with STV having the added benefit of local proportionality.

STV is a good system. It is fair to both parties and voters. It's better for women's representation and diversity than FPTP & MMP open list.

Supporting the recommendation of the BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform Make Your Vote Count - Support BC-STV - 12th May 2009

MMP and STV have similar results as far as translating votes into seats.  

The main differences:

1) Is that under STV every politicians is accountable to voters. With MMP, voters could fire their local candidate only to have them returned on the party list.

2) With STV, every local region will get representation from all elected parties.  This means that most voters could turn to either a member of government or the opposition.  Under MMP, in Germany, the Greens get assigned seats by the list but I believe they have only once elected a local representative.

For provincial politics (or municipal), where most of the governments decisions are very localized, (ie where do roads get built, or hospitals) Single Transferable Votes are by far the superior system.  It creates the greatest degree of fairness and it is the system that maximizes the amount choice that voters gets.  A party could put up a list of candidates for an area and voters would return the ones who they like creating a much more personalized representation. 

At the federal level where the governments powers are much more broad and much less local, different PR systems may or may not have their advantages.  One may argue that local representation is less essential as they are dealing with trade, inter-provincial disputes, legislation.  If you accept an MMP system or any other list based system federally you have to be content with outsourcing your representatives to the party.  As it is, political parties are so locked into the issue of solidarity that they are practically this way already so at least you would have the right numbers to begin with. 

 Federally, we can also keep in mind that we have two houses to deal with.  In Australia, they have an STV upper house, and an AV lower house.  We could always mix and match if we wanted to federally.

The problem with PR, politically, is that it is almost universally proposed by the left in this country, and so it seems like a play to ensure eternal coalition governments.

PR advocates should build a working majority of ideological and other groups that are underrepresented or disenfranchised under MMP (in particular on the right side of the aisle). 

Two groups that come to mind for me are libertarians and social conservatives, neither of which are well-served by the status quo. The Harper government has run the country more or less in the mould of a Mulroney type stance. There is the odd sop to the right like cutting arts funding, but it is largely nickel and dime stuff (I'm not suggesting Harper isn't genuinely a Conservative, I am suggesting he is constrained by FPTP because he needs to expand his base, and that means being centrist).

There are a lot of conservatives that are dissatisfied with Harper for this reason, who would like to have their own party, without being shut out of the halls of power as Reform was. Some PR incarnation of the Reform party could form a coalition with other parties in exchange for concessions on particular issues. They could work with the Bloc on decentralization, for instance. Likewise for Libertarians and Social Conservatives that dislike centrist conservatism.

Of course I don't think that argument is likely to be made, or if it is, I think it will reduce the appeal of PR to some people (I don't think it is a surprise most people on the left that think they would do better with PR also support such a voting system).

As for AV.

It would be an improvement over FPTP in that it would eliminate strategic voting/vote splitting and offer slightly more choice.  It is neither more or less proportional than FPTP, as neither system has any mechanism for transferring votes to seats and both depend on regional concentration of votes to avoid sweeps.  

Unfortunately, unless paired up with a fair voting system it would fail to deliver the diversity of voices that are reflected in our society.

By AV do you mean a preferencial ballot. That is such a non starter. Still can't convince me on STV the MMp they had designed in Onatrio was very good, every one had local representation and still got their party of choice to be topped up to a proper % of representation. The problem was the lists. If they had said it would be in % loss of their seat(so if you lost by the least amount) then you moved to the house. It doesn't do a lot for equality unless you make sure you get a diverse selection of candidates.

Could someone point me to a GOOD site that explains the STV model you are trumpeting. I can see it being good for local but less so as you go up the gov food chain.

2) With STV, every local region will get representation from all elected parties.  This means that most voters could turn to either a member of government or the opposition.  Under MMP, in Germany, the Greens get assigned seats by the list but I believe they have only once elected a local representative.

I can't see how you could get local rep from all parties unless your house became 1200 MP's and at that point I don't think it is a cost benefit.

______________________________________________________________________________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." Noam Chomsky

I think Pro-PR people who want to get rid of FPTP must stop the STV vs MMP debate until the BC-STV referenfum is over.

The anti-PR side is going to use the STV vs MMP debate to make sure we don't vote for BC-STV this May. 

People who support PR must remember that the only PR system on the ballot will be BC-STV, not BC-MMP.

If BC-STV does not get over 50% in the referendum, the movement for PR will be significantly setback.

JKR 

Yes, only STV is in the cards right now. 

Thorin,

There is some information at www.stv.ca  The site will be good, but it's still in development.  If you e-mail me at my last name @telus.net, I'll send you a few documents that make the comparative case between MMP and STV.

Supporting the recommendation of the BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform Make Your Vote Count - Support BC-STV - 12th May 2009

From what I've read, opposers to PR in general tend to point to countries like Italy as examples where PR appears not to work well. Italy is also a country defined by regional differences and interests, and I think a bit moreso than Canada. PR simply provides everyone with a an equally weighted vote whereas FPP distorts vote results and wastes far too many votes. FPP is a very inefficient system compared to proportional voting. There are just too many negatives with FPP systems. PR in general works well in the rest of Europe, especially MMP in Germany where voter turnout rates for elections are some of the highest in the world

LOL don't forget how people always laugh about Italian parliament even though they have had less than us over the last 60 years.

______________________________________________________________________________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." Noam Chomsky

Yes. And Italy was also a frontline state during the cold war. Italy  received extra special attention from the west for many years. 

Does PR mean extremist voices will be heard?

Yes, the conservatives would be represented proportionally and fairly as long as they meet or exceed a minimum threshold percentage of votes. Our in-house experts here say 3% is regarded as a fair minimum.

Depends.  Some on the right think the NDP or Greens are extremist and many on the left think the Conservatives are extremist.  Whether you agree with a voice or not, does not mean they have any less right to be democratically represented.

Most pro-rep models use a threshold so a party would require 3% to 5% to get their first seat.   

 STV models have a higher threshold and voters get to vote for the person.  This means smaller parties have to recruit candidates who would appeal to more than their base or have a higher base.  In BC's model, we have an average seat base of about 5, which means that a party needs to get an average of about 16% of 1st + transferred preferences.  (In Ireland, for instance a number of the Green candidates have about 8-9% of first votes and then the rest are transfered once other voters drop off.)

 STV models usually end up being close to the PR level of an MMP system because smaller parties usually have areas of concentration.  (AKA, look at the Green Party.  They had 7% across the country, while they had a number of ridings over 10% and a number of ridings closer to 2%)

In Ireland, there are one or two "extremist" parties elected to their legislature. (Aka the Sinn Fien) and the previous election a Socialist was elected.  Independents and smaller parties actually don't get much speaking time as the party size depends on their voice.

 In Germany, which uses PR, the government actually has the ability to ban political parties it deems extreme, so quite often parties which may have received representation are outlawed.  (aka neo-nazi and skinhead parties mainly.)

More accurately, Germany uses MMP, which is a PR system. STV is also a PR system. MMP is not the only PR system. 

You are hot tonight, Fidel!

so the Rhino party or some new facebook party could be represented. I wouldn't have a big problem with that, but I wonder how far it could go. Could it eventually erase the party system as we know it? How tricky would it be to form a government with 300 plus alternate views?

We have no such worries. PR systems are in place in many countries such as Ireland and Germany. Those countries have had MORE stable government than Canada.

Our FPTP system is the system that is unstable. Once a country has more than two popular parties, the FPTP system breaks down. This is the crux of the problem we're currently having in Ottawa. We have many popular parties within a political system meant for the existance of only two popular parties.

So either we change the political system or change the political parties. If we keep FPTP we should just have two popular parties like they have in the US, UK, and Australia, the other countries that don't have PR but rather have majoritarian systems.

That would mean the Liberals, NDP, and Greens merging into one party à la the Democratic Party in the US and the Labour parties in the UK and Australia.

I agree. Keep them angry and seperated in the west until they get pissed off because they have no representation.

So what are the guiding principles behind the art of coalition building?

I think you need a stv voting party game to understand STV.  I am used to it because i grew up with it.

Stv can be used in any election to get proportionality, (health boards to get better ethnic representation for instance).  You do not need partys to use it. MMP is only possible if there are partys. But the main thing to remember is that stv gets in in bc it does not automatically mean that stv will win in canada federally. It just means a pro rep system will be more likely federally, thats all. And if politicians could choose, they would chose MMP.

In the end I believe they  would chose mmp just to head off the threat of STV.    What threat?  Workload!

STV is a VERY competitive system at the voter politician interphase. If you lose your seat in stv it is likely to be to a fellow party member. Politicians are always on a threadmill in stv ( just like the rest of us). MMP is less competitive (but more so than fptp) and so politicians prefer it.

So vote in STV and MMP is much more likely.  Neither one is ever likely to beat a 40% veto so do not expect stv any time soon.  

Ward's question was good, what are the guiding principles behind coalition building.

 The main principle is 50%+1 and finding coalition partners that you can find common ground with.  

 In some countries, there are often formalized coalition parties which run partnerships.  Germany uses a mixed systems so the major parties run mainly candidates at local levels while their coalition partners try and rack up the votes at the senior levels.  As long as the coalition partners get enough seats it is fine.

 Sometimes, if a presumed coalition can't get enough votes or stability, you will get the idea of a grand coalition.  Lets say the NDP + Liberals couldn't form government on their own and didn't want to ally with the bloc, then the Liberals may approach the Conservatives about forming a government.   This happens quite often, where you government that composes of the two largest parties and they come up with a mutual governing agreement.

 Under PR systems, politics is much nicer so its easier for parties to work together.  Once you shave off the plurality campaign and let the extremists have their own 2 seats party, you actually find most politicians are willing to work with each other.  In PR systems, people vote for parties that get things done.

 As a party knows a 2% swing is only going to equal a 2% shift in seats so their is less posturing about elections.  Your not in divisive contests for single seats, so parties typically gain less by attacking each other.  With 5 or 6 parties for voters to choose from, politicians will spend more time promoting themselves than attacking their opponents. 

Single Transferable also results in good personal representation which is why it is my preferred system.  

If there are 5 seats in an STV district and the NDP think they can win 2, they may run 2 or more candidates.  So you can get two types of NDP candidates in your area, perhaps someone from a labour background and some one from a social activist background so you have more diversity in local representation.  

 Parties can run more candidates than seats they could win and then voters, by ranking them, would get to decide which of the parties candidates they want in.  Parties don't usually run excess candidate because the sitting reps don't like competition. 

So it wouldn't be out of the question to have a ndp / conservative coalition , with say...ndp  democractic / social  fundamentals merged with conservative economics?

Theoretically,yes; practically, no.

I'm going to get a lot of chocolate on my beard here and say that I might prefer NDP social democratic fundamentals merged with Liberal economics. Not Paul Martin or even Jean Chretien economics, because neoliberalism is biting the dust right now around the world. But rather those Liberal economics that existed in Canada between the years 1938 and 1974-ish, or up to the time when Pierre Trudeau swung to the right by 1980 or so. I think he was courted by rightwing neoliberal ideologues at that time.

You want the mixed economy and Keynesian principles that got us through the wartime deficits and the immediate postwar "full employment"  period involving work on infrastructural needs(IMHO) Fidel.

And investments in bonds that won't go bust.

And a reading public.

I would never use that argument. That's one of the biggest failings of winner-take-all: a bonus for parties with regional concentrations of support.

I would just say that, with 20 districts across BC, random fluctuations will give a small party some seats even with less support than it would need to win seats in all 20.

That is, if BC-STV wins provincially, MMP is more likely federally. Not just because of competition issues, but because of district size. My ideal system is STV in Northern lreland where they have six-seater districts with only 98,000 population in each, one MLA for each 16,333 people. BC-STV has reasonable districts. On the other hand, how would BC voters feel about six-seater STV districts federally, one for the whole of Vancouver Island, another for the whole of the Interior from Kamloops to Princeton to Cranbrook?

The question is much more about district size than choice of systems. The best MMP model now on the table is the latest from Quebec, a regional model with regions of, on average, about 14 MLAs (nine local, five regional), with open lists. But that's a natural threshold of around 7% (maybe less depending on the rounding method). In the last federal election, a model like that, but with only 33% regional top-up MPs, would give the Greens only 16 MPs, not the ideal 21 MPs. I'm sure they wouldn't complain. STV might cut them back to 12 MPs because of smaller districts. Again I doubt they would complain. A nine-seater STV district is as proportional as a 14-MP MMP region, because of the transfers candidates pick up during the count. But BC-STV won't have any nine-seaters, so it will be less than perfect proportionality, intentionally so: a trade-off for smaller districts.

Ideally it could have some nine-seaters: Cambridge, Massachusetts still does. So do many smaller cities and towns in Ireland, where they elect a nine-member council from a single STV district. Quite workable. Ireland had a nine-seater and three eight-seaters nationally from 1923 to 1937.

And if the Green Party doesn't have enough support to win a seat in that district, their second preferences will go to the greenest of the NDP candidates, perhaps moving her or him ahead of another NDP candidate. 

We almost got that in Ontario in 1985. The Progressive Conservatives had run two minority governments with NDP cooperation from 1975 to 1981. They were very centrist, with some prominent Red Tories, and the Liberals had sometimes attacked them from the right. David Peterson had been the more conservative choice in the 1982 Liberal leadership race. However, the PCs were outbid by the Liberals (thanks in part to Ian Scott, the best left-Liberal ever).

Rainbow coalitions are uncommon across the world, but do happen occasionally under either winner-take-all or PR systems.

Bump: one of the best threads from the coalition discussions.

That is where I am weak on understanding PR when it comes to deciding which method of voting is best above or below a population size and political boundary.  I've seen some decent tutorials for describing STV and the like, but they tend to focus on the basic mechanics of the STV ballot and how that works for five or ten seat ridings or whatever. I guess the details pertaining to regional representation are really for the electoral gurus. Of course, if we're trying to explain PR to people, we should have some grasp of the bigger picture as well.

Although I am in favour of PR systems that give proper political parties full control over the legislators (so as to facilitate civic participation in parties), I am against the concept of coalition building.

Even the most ambitious reform agenda (which for class-collaborationists is meant for mere sections of the working class and not for the class as a whole) gets watered down.  Witness Die Linke's junior governance in Berlin and Brandenburg: cuts, cuts, cuts.

Just as with revolutionists' impatience and agitative eagerness for "action, action, action" (including spontaneous mass strikes), the coalition strategy is just another get-rich-quick strategy that cons the working class.

Perhaps you should define "proper political party"    "full control over the legislators"?   If the partys have full control over the legislators, where does that leave the voters?  (I live in bc and I can tell you).  Campbell has his sauron ring and "full control over the legislators" and it is not pretty.

And "class-collaborationists" ?  And in the absence of coalition,  what is the point of being in favour of pro rep?  And if you do not have coalition in pro rep, the alternative is the numb nuts stupid situation we have in canada right now. For all eternity!

In pro rep, like it or not, the left wingers do not get absolute majority very often.  They have to compromise to get anything done. 

the alternative? Harper clones everywhere.

19th-century style political parties that are more than just mere electoral machines.  Case in point: the pre-war SPD's alternative culture network of cultural societies, sports clubs, funeral homes, etc.

This leftist also happens to live in BC.  What I mean here is that the out-of-legislature party machinery should have control even over the likes of Campbell.  The pre-war SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany) Executive Committee had no control over its parliamentary caucus when the latter voted for WWI credits.

Yeah I know, and Harper too.  Again, I am referring to the party's control over its government representatives, such that even US-style presidents would be under the whims of the party machinery.

From my politics, I'm for this PR not because of coalitionism, but because more voices are simply heard.  "Protest parties" are also legitimized.

The point is to build absolute majority support amongst workers.  Another point is that compromise can go too far in coalition building.  For example, the Bolsheviks themselves (after garnering majority working-class support in soviets) conceded to the peasant-based Left Socialist Revolutionaries on land reform in order to secure the coalition that toppled the Provisional Government, but did not concede further by means of continuing the bloody war with Germany.  In Germany, the inter-war splinter party USPD also had majority support amongst workers, but spinelessly decided not to arrest Ebert, Scheidemann, and the rest of the SPD leadership as the anti-worker war criminals that they were.

I (kind of) see where you are coming from now.  The partys (as in the individual members) have much more control over the leaders in Ireland.

But not as much as what you want in the above post. 

What you want is to have the partys much more responsive to voters needs. I think people are just too lazy to go to the meetings. the sports club idea is a good one "alternative culture network of cultural societies, sports clubs, funeral homes, etc". But that goes back to Bismark, doesn't it?   Printing their paper in switzerland and sneaking it into germany must have been an amazing undertaking. Not a pun.  How come socalism had such support when their party was banned?

The idea or socalist gospel  must have been as powerful as the holy free market message is now.  Perhaps it is time to look really hard and update the message?

If the NDP voters want pro rep, then the NDP would adopt it as a core principle, kinda thing.

  It would be tough to make it happen. People are so turned off by politics as done here.  I see the NDP leadership as being pretty cynical too.  (Though not at campbells level).   We see through NDP posturing. Unfortunately the believers in the holy free market gospel do not see through Campbell.

It's cheap and easy for parties to say that they support PR when they have no chance of forming a phony majority government.  But I know of no party in Canada that has actively pursued PR while it was in serious contention for getting the phony majority.

Apparently, principles are for chumps.

I don't think Ireland permits, by law, mere political parties to recall out-of-line legislators and execs.

I think that's half the story: the other half is that workers have less and less time to do so.  I mean, the working poor have to have multiple jobs per household just to get by.  How can they attend meetings?

That support was contingent heavily upon such activity.  In fact, contrary to the usual politically correct history, that was in fact Lenin's model (especially parallels between the victory of seeing Bismarck leave and the overthrow of the czarist regime).  In spite of his emphasis on newspapers in underground Russia (which I commend by emphasizing the role of Internet media), today I suggest party-organized food banks to get this culture going, which neither mere media organization nor mere electoral gimmicks can do.

"I don't think Ireland permits, by law, mere political parties to recall out-of-line legislators and execs". In the context of ireland, the "party" is seen as the central organization.  And out of control legislators are elected locally. So I think it might be ok if the local branch of the party had some sort of recall powers.

It is kind of difficult in the irish situation because many local votes are not based on party lines. (it is STV voting so no official partys are even needed).

In the context of what you say, this is a weakness of stv.  It would be very difficult to recall someone who got 1/3 of their votes from outside the "party voters".

When Wilf designs his mmp system, you need to get him to install that recall option.

Brian.

Well, Wilf is inspired by Germany's MMP, so let's take the German case: allow the "party" machineries themselves to yank out those elected in the constituency votes.  Assuming Merkel won a constituency, she'd be recallable by both the constituents and the CDU bureaucrats outside the Bundestag, whoever recalls first.

A coin toss would be more democratic than our obsolete electoral system in Bananada. But would this be too complicated for most Canadians? I think that with the tiny budgets and short amounts of time allocated for informing the public on provincial PR referenda, the coin toss method just might fly here. And for the more fiscally austere of us,  we'd have to downsize our current lady of the lake on long-term contract. Win-win 50-50 all around!

Then you don't know the history in Quebec.

In the PQ's first election in 1970 it got 23% of the votes and 6% of the seats: 7 MNAs, standing fourth. The Union Nationale got 17 seats with 20% of the vote, and even the Creditistes got 12 seats with only 11% of the vote, while the Liberals got 67% of the seats with 45% of the vote. 1973 was even worse: the PQ got only 6 seats with 30% of the vote, and again the UN and Creditistes got more seats than the PQ with fewer votes. So when the PQ took power in 1976 they wanted PR, but first they wanted independence. However the 1980 referendum failed.

So when they won again in 1981 they pursued PR, appointed a Minister to do it, and were part-way through the process when Levesque's caucus rebelled and stopped it.

It languished as a principle everyone said needed to be pursued -- but not today -- until Bernard Landry became premier in 2001; in 2002-3 the Estates-General on the reform of democratic institutions in Quebec was held. It endorsed a PR system by 90%, a consensus. (Landry hoped it would also endorse a change to a presidential system; it did not.)

In the 2003 general election every party promised PR. Charest moved quickly; he appointed a minister in charge, and a few months later they announced they would proceed. An excellent report followed, and then a draft bill, which had been diluted by the Liberal caucus so that it featured five-MLA districts with no province-wide proportionality. This would have helped the Liberals (who suffered from wasted votes being piled up in their strongholds, so that they lost the 1998 election despite getting more votes than the PQ) but helped no other party. A set of excellent public hearings resulted in a consensus that the draft bill needed to be improved, but no consensus on a new model. Still, the government moved the process ahead, asking the Chief Electoral Officer to draft a report on models, which he took a year to do, an excellent report. Unfortunately, by then Charest had lost his majority, and some of his appetite for reform.

But the saga continues.

In many ways, Quebec politics seems to be the most advanced in Canada.  The fact that political parties in Quebec are able to put basic fairness ahead of partisan politics is a testement to the strength of Quebec society.

Quebec's early childhood development policies are also way ahead of the rest of Canada.

Hopefully Quebec will lead Canada away from winner take all voting and toward fair voting.

Prof. Henry Milner:

How would the current history of Canada differ if Michael Fortier had won in Vaudreuil-Soulanges last year? And why didn’t he?

EKOS: Best method for improving voter participation:

¤ 33% online voting

¤ 29% proportional representation

British Columbia: 31% online voting, 32% proportional representation

Voters under 45 strongly favoured online voting, and so, fewer of them said PR was the best method to improve turnout. But among those 45-64: 30% online voting, 33% proportional representation

And among us over-65 dinosaurs: 16% online voting, 35% proportional representation

 And yet, here we are, almost 40 years later, with no PR in sight.  So, I ask you, are the parties more serious about PR or about protecting their own interests?

Gee, they might as well have asked young people to choose between free beer and a free paperback copy of Gone With the Wind. PR certainly does sound interesting, but I think most young people would rather get it done and over with online than be bothered with important details concerning a subject like democracy. Oh jeez, they'd say, I think we covered that in grade nine history, or was it trig? Haberdashery? Home ec! And, why choose between the two if we can have both?

I thought I read where ballot counting for PR systems can or should be computerized anyway. Perhaps with PR making every vote count, it would be all the more reason to count using both paper and electronic ballots as a double check?